


smell the sea and feel the sky

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post 8x06, and arya comes running like bitch who you gonna marry if it ain't me, gendry gets roped into an engagement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-13 08:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18936790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, the lone heir to House Baratheon, was getting married.Marta Swyft stepped down into the mud, as she greeted the welcome party in his courtyard. Her blond hair was covered by a hood, but, even half-covered, he could see she was truly beautiful. She had delicate features, but held herself with steel. At once, Gendry knew, in another life, he could have liked her. Perhaps in this life, he solemnly thought, he would grow to appreciate her friendship.But everything about her was wrong. She was willowy and tall, where Arya had been angled and short. Marta looked kindly and good-humored, whereas Arya had been a sword and quick-witted. Marta Swyft was, in a word, lovely. The chief problem was she was not Arya Stark.Rising from a curtsy, she said, “Hello, my Lord.”Gendry curtly bowed, “Lady Swyft. Welcome to Storm’s End.”





	1. Chapter 1

Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, the lone heir to House Baratheon, was getting married.

Davos assured him his new wife, some darling of the rebuilt capital, was smart, funny and beautiful. She had golden hair that curled down her back and hazel eyes that fired with mischief, Davos described in his letters. She was a kindly sort, or so he had been told. If he were to be married, he supposed the Swyft girl would do.

Marta Swft wrote him lengthy letters he struggled to read. Selwyn Tarth, his most trusted advisor with Davos in the capital, read them aloud as each and every letter arrived from King’s Landing. His reading ability was slow going, even now, after three years of Lordship, and he admired that Selwyn had the generosity to never mention his failings when it came to literacy. Gendry knew he was a good Lord. He had strengths in other areas.

The smallfolk adored him. His impending wedding had the Stormlands abuzz with excitement. He feigned his own satisfaction with the match. His people had no use for a Lord that did not do his duty. When he had taken up his seat, he promised himself he would make the Stormlands a good place and the smallfolk would never know a summer of starvation. He owed enduring prosperity to the boy he had been in Flea Bottom.

Selwyn Tarth entered his solar with a brief bow, “My apologies, my Lord. You have a letter from Queen Sansa.”

Gendry impatiently ran his hand through his shaggy, black hair. He loathed letters from Sansa. He knew maintaining a strong relationship with the Queen of the North, his King’s sister, was important to the safety and security and happiness of the realm, but every time the red wolf wrote to him, he found himself in a stormy mood for days after.

Simply, the Queen’s letters never spoke of _her_ , the ghost girl that haunted his dreams. He long suspected Sansa knew where she had gone, off on her boat toward the edge of the world, but, if she did, she never said. It was maddening. He did not care to hear about the North and her propositions for trade between Winterfell and Storm’s End. He did not care about the sweet anecdotes she often included about the men he had trained in the forges before the Long Night. Gendry was a stormy fellow. He did not care about anything that the North held if she was not there.

Gendry sat up in his large, bloody lordly chair. “Right then,” he exhaled, “on with it.”

Selwyn broke the grey seal on the parchment and read, “ _To my dearest Lord Gendry Baratheon_.” She always started her letters with such endearments. Arya had never called him anything endearing, if anything it had been the opposite. He had always been Gendry to the Starks, or at least the ones who knew him well. Jon and Arya, both, were gone, now. Scattered to the winds of snow and sea. “ _I thank you for your invitation to your impending nuptials. Regretfully, I will be unable to attend. My place is in the North. It has been three years, and yet, the North still recovers from the Long Night. I thank you for your service to my family during that time. I have not forgotten your friendship to House Stark. In the spirit of my gratitude, this I tell you as a sister, do not marry that Swyft girl._ ” Selwyn wrinkled his nose and interjected, “My Lord—”

Gendry felt his fingertips spark with some long-forgotten energy. It was anticipation, it was nerves and it was the fires of hope. He shook his head, “Finish the letter, Lord Tarth.”

The older man looked at odds, but he was as faithful as his daughter. He cleared his throat and continued, “ _You once told her lordship would mean nothing without her. I know she is as changing as the wind and twice as wild, but if you love my sister, if you truly love her as I know she loves you, give her time to come home. She will. Yours, affectionately, Sansa.”_

Gendry extended his hand, waiting for the letter. He was not as good at reading as he would have liked, but he needed to see the words with his own two eyes. It held no true news about Arya, not really, but it was the most he had heard about her in three years. It was oddly precious to him.

With the parchment in his grasp, he poured over the words. Reading gave him a headache, but he soldiered on. He feasted on each sentence. He had been starved for three years. He spent every night, these last three years, fretting whenever a storm rapped at his window. Gendry had agonized over the state of the sea and the unwelcome thought that, with each new storm, perhaps it had taken Arya Stark with it.  

At the very least, this letter confirmed somewhere, out in the great and vast world, Arya Stark lived.

* * *

Marta Swyft arrived with a party from the capital, led by Ser Davos, four days after the letter from the North came by raven.

The young Lord was restless as he stood in his large courtyard as each horse and carriage and man galloped past the gates. He kept his eyes peeled. He did not mind the carriage that likely held the Swyft girl. No, for the moment he saw Davos, Gendry took four long steps to the old man as he dismounted from his horse and crippled him in a hug. He wheezed, good-naturedly, “Alright, lad. You’re like to break my bones with that grip.”

Gendry released him and clapped Davos on the shoulders, brimming with delight, “It has been too long, Davos.”

“Stormlands will always be home, my Lord,” he said, smiling. “And you haven’t run it into the ground yet, it seems. That’s good.”

“You’re on the King’s council. You know I haven’t.”  

The older man turned toward that carriage that sat closed nearby and the door swung open, as if Davos willed it. A few ladies scrambled out of the hold, all pretty and poised and unbattered by the wars, before the girl he assumed was Marta Swyft stepped down into the mud. Her blond hair was covered by a hood, but, even half-covered, he could see she was truly beautiful. She had delicate features, but held herself with steel. At once, Gendry knew, in another life, he could have liked her. Perhaps in this life, he solemnly thought, he would grow to appreciate her friendship.

But everything about her was wrong. She was willowy and tall, where Arya had been angled and short. Marta looked kindly and good-humored, whereas Arya had been a sword and quick-witted. Marta Swyft was, in a word, lovely. The chief problem was she was not Arya Stark.

Rising from a curtsy, she said, “Hello, my Lord.”

Gendry curtly bowed, “Lady Swyft. Welcome to Storm’s End.”

* * *

Arya Stark crushed the letter in her fist. Stupid Sansa, she thought. “Stupid Gendry,” she cursed, out loud. The men and women bustling on her ship did not mind the outburst. Arya Stark was as like to shout at the skies most days than she was to glide up and down the deck in severe silence. She was a good Captain, fair and just, but she was not the predictable sort.

She did not receive ravens, often, whenever they were in port, but when she did it always came in the same hand. Sansa Stark was the last window Arya had to Westeros and she liked to peer into the looking glass with every new letter, because the window home meant she could always go back. There was a comfort in that knowledge.

Arya sighed.

Her dutiful first mate, Safia, a girl she had met on her travels two years hence, curiously inquired, “Captain?”

Arya glanced up at the direwolf sigil stitched into the sails and thought of home. In her mind’s eye, could see the halls of home and the Godswood and her siblings. Home. Pack. But she also recalled the dim, candlelit corridor where Gendry had dropped to his knee. Winterfell was home because it was where the people she loved had roamed, including that stupid, bull-headed, beautiful boy. _Man_.

And he was getting married. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Safia, set sail for Westeros.”

The first mate did well to conceal her surprise, “Winterfell, then?”

Arya shook her head, and looked past the horizon, “No. Storm’s End.”


	2. Chapter 2

The seas raged and rolled madly the closer The Hound and her crew sailed to Storm's End. Safia had studied many Westerosi maps and she knew, without question, the safest port was not the shoreline of the Stormlands.

The sea was rough and the shoreline even harsher. It was riddled with hundreds of hidden, shipwrecked boats that could easily drag another down to the bottom of the sea, if the Gods of the Sea were feeling particularly cruel. Yet, her Captain was of one mind. They would not waste time docking somewhere safer, she had said when Safia had pressed her, any delay and it might be too late. 

Too late for what, Safia was not certain, but as the ship lurched again in the uneven waves, Safia wondered if whatever was waiting for their crew in Storm's End was truly worth the burden. 

* * *

Davos loathed highborn functions. He didn't like much feasts or tourneys, but he loathed nothing so much as a wedding. His own wedding had been a small affair. He had exchanged some words with his wife, gave her a sweet kiss on the beach where they were wed and, after, climbed into a small boat that took him out to his ship. He was a smuggler, then. The world could not keep him much contained and not even a ladywife was enough to lure him to stay put on land. 

He was older now. He liked living in a castle with his wife on his arm. The sea did not much agree with his stomach and, after the war, he was rather ready to put wars and battles and smuggling aside for something quieter. Land was quieter than the sea.

Time had changed much about Lord Davos Seaworth. It did not change his aversions to highborn weddings. He knew the lad, Gendry, wasn't much for lordly affairs, either. His impending nuptials to the Swyft girl had been brought about by his own meddling. Davos wondered if meddling was the talent of old men. 

He knew that his talents were not in the planning of such grand events. He swore, if one more person asked him about the bloody feast or the color of the linens, he was going to lose his mind. He didn't understand the difference between satin and cotton, or gold and yellow. 

Davos heard the lad chuckle as he dismissed the cook for the fourth time that day. He posed, knowingly, "Something very funny to you, lad?" 

Gendry nodded after the hurried cook, who looked like she was not very keen on spending another minute with Davos either, "If you keep dismissing Lara like that, I'll have to find another cook. And she's a fine one." 

"My apologies, my Lord," Davos straightened his aching spine. "I don't think I'm any help when it comes to the planning. I don't much like weddings. Too many highbrow lords and ladies for my liking." 

"I wasn't of a mind to _get_ married," Gendry briskly reminded him. "You were the one that was so keen I find a wife." 

"You need an heir," Davos pointed out. 

Gendry's eyes darkened. "You needn't remind me of my duty. I know it." 

Without another word, The Lord of Storm's End stomped out of the hall with a frown coloring his features. The older man observed, no other young man alive could glower quite like Gendry, not even Jon Snow. The display made Davos smile. The young were still young, it seemed. Not even a war could dampen their own self-pity. 

* * *

Gendry flattened the metal under his hammer. He hit it so hard it made his teeth ache. He liked the forge. It settled his whirling mind, and, in the days leading up to his marriage, he was in great need of a distraction. Marta Swyft was a sweet girl. She led with kindness. He saw how much the smallfolk liked her dulcet tones and the gentle way she talked with children. 

She was the antithesis of the girl that ravaged his every thought and stole away in every dream.

He was not reminded of Arya Stark when he looked at Marta Swyft. Gendry was still uncertain whether that was welcome or not. He did not want a wife that looked like Arya. There had been plenty of girls in the past that, in passing, looked like Arya and it had caused him such profound pain that he sought refuge in the smithy for several days after.

But girls that did not look like Arya also reminded him of her, in their own way. His own betrothed carried the memory of Arya in her every breath. Marta did not look like Arya, she did not talk like Arya, she did not hold herself the way the She-Wolf once had, and it was glaringly apparent what he was missing every time he looked at her. He found flaw after flaw. None of which were her fault. He was too in love with gust of smoke to ever hold onto Arya for long, even in his dreams. It was not fair. Marta was not the reason he had lost her. 

He slammed the hammer down, again. It sang a pretty tune.

When Marta entered the smithy, Gendry was so focused on his task, he did not notice her enter. He did not hear her call his name. Only when she raised her voice, and said, "My Lord," did he stop hammering.

He said, with his jaw wired tightly shut, "Don't call me that." 

She looked surprised and slightly hurt. He felt a flood of shame wash over him. She ducked her head, demurely and perfectly sheepish for a girl of her station, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll just go--" 

Gendry shook his head, " _No_. No, wait. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you." He lifted his ruined tunic and wiped his face of the grim and dirt speckled there. She flushed a pretty pink at his exposed stomach. Once, when he had been a smith in King's Landing in the days before the Great War, he would have smirked at a blushing girl's attention. Now, it made him feel hollow. He lowered the fabric and said, "You needn't apologize." 

Marta brushed blonde curls behind her ear and deeply reddened, "I know you're busy, but I was hoping we could go for a walk." Arya would have suggested sparring. The pang in his chest rang as loudly as the metal he worked. 

Gendry performed a winning smile, "Of course. I should go rid myself of the must from the smithy. I'll meet you in the gardens in an hour?" 

The Swyft girl briefly curtsied, "As you wish, my Lord." 

"Marta," Gendry called, as she turned to leave the smithy. The girl turned around and they met eyes. Gendry managed to sound gentle, the gruff brute, "Gendry. You must call me Gendry." 

She smiled and there was nothing improper hidden in the corners, as Arya's own had once concealed, "Of course, my Lord." She hesitated and quietly corrected herself, "I mean, Gendry." With another quick bow of her head, she fled from the smithy. 

Gendry tried not to be disappointed at how perfectly ladylike everything about Marta seemed to be. 

* * *

The Hound docked in Shipbreaker Bay. The sun was shinning through heavy, grey clouds that warned an impending rain storm and the crew aboard The Hound looked as ragged as the waves that lapped at their docked ship. The sea had been unkind to the crew in the three days it took to make port. 

Arya felt ill. It was not the rocking of the boat, nor the unpleasant journey that made her stomach list like the sea. As men from the Stormlands rushed her docked ship armed to the teeth with weapons and questions as to their safe arrival in a shoreline riddled with ruined ships, Arya ignored the bannermen. Instead, her eyes focused up at the hulking might of Storm's End. Gendry was inside the thick, grey walls, the stupid affianced moron. 

"Madame, state your purpose," the man repeated. He must have asked her half-a-dozen times, for he looked thoroughly irritated by her continuous silence. Arya Stark did not have time for questions. She might already be too late. That stupid boy always had more strength than sense. Engaged. _Seven Hells, Gendry_. 

Arya glided past the men that tried to hold her crew hostage. Each man that tried to reach for her, she ducked and evaded with great skill. It was only when one of the Stormlands' bannermen tried to run Safia through, did Arya finally address the men. "My name is Arya Stark," she said. "And if you run my crew through before I get a chance to talk to your Lord, I will string you all up by your toes off the side of my ship." 

"Lady Stark," the irritated man said, as he dipped his head low in one of those silly bows she had not missed in her years on the sea. "My apologies. We didn't know--"

"You'd think the Direwolf head on the end of my ship and the Stark sigil on my sails would've been sign enough," Arya cut him off, and climbed down off of her ship. She did not wait for anyone to show her the way. She did not need a guide. 

All castles were the same in one major way. The Lord always slept in the Lord's Chambers. 

* * *

The rain ruined his afternoon walk with Marta.

It had been a bright, but cloudy day all morning, as Gendry worked in the forge. Yet, the moment he set out with the Swyft girl, the heavens had opened up and plagued the castle with another storm. In the years he lived in the Stormlands, Gendry knew better than to expect any day without rain, but Marta had looked so disappointed that he felt a twinge of regret for rescheduling their walk in the garden. 

The grounds were never safe during a storm, he had told her. Trees could topple over and the rain could soak through a man so completely that he could catch his death. The Stormlands was a hard place. He liked that he was a harsh Lord of an even harsher land. It reminded him of the North, if he let himself think of Winterfell. 

The lightening crashed. His chambers flashed blue. 

He peeled the wet clothes off his body and cast them on the chair for one of the servants to collect in the morning. He used to fold them and bring them down to the laundress himself, when he first arrived, but the kindly old laundress had swat at his hand with a large wooden spoon in great offense. She didn't need a Lord displacing her from her job, she had snarled. That day, Gendry decided he liked Old Biff. 

Gendry shook out the water from his dark locks and rubbed his weary eyes. 

"You grew your hair out," a voice from the darkness softly said. 

Lord Gendry Baratheon, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, whirled around. There, hidden in the shadows of his room, stood a small, unmistakable figure. "Arya?" he whispered. The lightening cracked again and painted his room in delayed light. 

It was her. 

She stepped into the candlelight of his chambers and he felt his stomach riot. "Hello Gendry," she blinked. 

He nearly stepped toward her and wrapped her up in his arms. He nearly slammed her against the nearest surface and kissed her as hard as he could muster. He nearly fell to his knees and buried his head into her stomach. He nearly cupped her face and said her name until he was breathless. 

"What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" he said, instead. 


End file.
